Hayward, the former head of film at Working Title, admitted that she was "over the moon" about Les Mis's eight Oscar nods.

"I'm still pinching myself," she said. "I'm in LA, and bizarrely I woke up knowing it was going to happen after 5am and I woke up just before then. I was sitting in my bed channel surfing to find CNN and just sat and watched it unfold. It was quite surreal listening to it being read out. It's magic.

"My bit of the journey is nothing compared to Cameron Mackintosh, Claude-Michel Schönberg, Herbert Kretzmer and Alain Boublil. I couldn't be more thrilled for them."

Asked about Hathaway's single-take rendition of 'I Dreamed a Dream', Hayward said: "It's one of the great ballads and one of the iconic songs in the show, but also a gut-wrenching, intense and moving song.

"Every time the actors built up to one of their songs, you could feel the focus and concentration and everyone was incredibly moved on that day.

"She sung it over and over again. She had to get herself into a very dark, intense place to do it. And all the time having to sing it live, which added real poignancy to it."

Hayward confessed that she was "gutted" to see Tom Hooper miss out on a 'Best Director' nomination due to his creative input on the stage-to-screen adaptation.

"It's more than a bit of a shame. I don't know how these decisions are arrived at," she said.

"Although Les Mis has had the most unbelievable team of people to make it, it's such a director's film. The very essential vision of the film is his. He's the only director that ever read the script, the only director we ever spoke to about it, the vision was his from start to finish. He drove this giant oil tanker of a film and it's just the most incredible feat of direction.

"I'm absolutely gutted that he's not been recognized."

The 2013 Academy Awards will be held on Sunday, February 24 at Hollywood's Dolby Theater.